Members of the press gather Thursday outside the Aeon Mall in Kashima, scene of an onging search and rescue operation after an explosion shortly after Tuesday's earthquake caused the already damaged complex to partially collapse. Photo by Rodrigo Reyes Marin/EPA
July 30 (UPI) -- The death toll on the Japanese island of Kyushu from a 7.0 magnitude earthquake climbed to 34, with another 89 people injured, authorities said Thursday.
The Fire Disaster Management Agency confirmed in an update that 7 people had been killed at the Aeon Mall in Kashima on the island's western seaboard due to a blast and its partial collapse, 11 in Yatsushiro City, and the remainder in surrounding cities and towns.
More than 267,000 people were evacuated from their homes amid a massive ongoing search and rescue operation involving more than 1,400 personnel from as far away as Okayama and air units from neighboring metropolitan areas including Fukuoka and Nagasaki.
As many as 9,000 of those forced to flee their homes, many of them elderly, are being accommodated in evacuation centers while others have been sleeping in cars amid more than 100 aftershocks since the main quake struck on Tuesday afternoon.
